It wasn't true. His parents were fine, they had to be. Frodo was only twelve; they wouldn't have left him alone. They wouldn't. It was all a big joke, some odd punishment for his sneaking off after supper. The sobbing and startlingly realistic grief would cease, and his parents would walk through the front door. Then all of Brandy Hall would laugh at his foolishness for believing even for a second that his parents were dead.
"Silly young lad," they would say. "Of course we're okay. We'd never leave you, you know that. The whole thing was your cousin's idea, really..." Frodo would laugh along, ignoring the cruelty of the joke itself for the sheer joy of having his parents, of not being alone.
And without his parents with him, he would definitely be alone. Oh, sure, he would be among hundreds of relatives on a daily basis, but who would honestly find the time for little Frodo in all the chaos? He didn't exactly spend much time with friends his own age, so most of his interactions were between he and his parents. His parents knew this, he reasoned, so of course they would never be so careless as to die. They were fine.
His Brandybuck relatives were far better actors than he would have otherwise credited them with. Their grief looked so real he had a hard time seeing through it at all. The tears staining their cheeks and reddening their eyes looked genuine, so much so that Frodo had almost fallen for this joke of theirs. Then reality struck him like a misguided bolt of lightning. They thought they could out-prank him, Frodo Baggins, most infamous prankster in the history of Brandy Hall, maybe even the Shire itself. Well, they would have to try much harder than this.
Well, here came his Aunt Asphodel, to offer condolences. Ha. Probably trying to get one up on him for that salt incident. He'd show her.
"Oh Frodo, you poor little thing!" she cried, smothering him in her arms. "Oh, what a horrible thing to happen!
"Mmmph!" Frodo tried his best to speak, but was thoroughly blanketed in his Aunts hug. It was quite a while before she finally let him go enough for him to speak (and breathe). He looked up at her defiantly, cold blue eyes boring into her soft, saddened brown ones.
"You haven't fooled me, you know," he said in a cold voice, a voice that seemed out of place on his delicate young face.
"Fooled you? What do you mean?" Aunt Asphodel asked with a sniffle.
"When are my parents coming back?" Frodo asked, continuing to stare at his aunt angrily. Her eyes widened, and choked on another sob.
"Frodo, I am sorry dear, but they are not coming back. I know this is hard for you, but-"
"NO!" Frodo yelled. "You're lying! I know they aren't dead!! They wouldn't die and leave me here! They wouldn't!!" Angry tears started to trail down his flushed face. Why did she continue to lie to him? He had guessed their game, now they should stop playing at it.
"Frodo, please, stop. This is not funny. We are not lying to you. We wouldn't lie about such a thing! Please, please, stop this," his Aunt pleaded. Frodo looked at his aunt, then around the room of grieving relatives, and finally allowed reality into his mind. His parents were gone. They were not coming back. He would not see them again after a day of insect hunting with friends, never hear his mother's gentle scoldings, or his father's deep, soul lifting laughter as his son told him the story of his latest adventure. His parents had been the kindest of people, letting Frodo explore life for himself, giving him the perfect mix of discipline and freedom to become his own hobbit. Now they were gone, and he would never know that freedom again.
That was the least of his losses. He loved his parents for so much more than that. Unlike other children his age, he idolized his parents, believing they were the best people possible to be like (with the possible exception of his uncle, Bilbo). He loved them deeply, and knew it, which was rare for the selfish days of childhood. This made the pain all the greater.
It wasn't fair! He wasn't an exceptionally bad child, really. Why was he being punished? Frodo couldn't think of any reason there was for him to have to feel this way. He felt angry, like a fire in his stomach; and sadness, like someone pushing down on his chest so he couldn't breathe. He wanted to curl up in a dark place, as far away from anyone as he could get, and cry until he could breathe again.
The Hall was suffocating him. There wasn't enough air in the gigantic house for all of the sobbing relatives. Frodo ran from the house, towards the river. He ran at full speed until he reached it's muddy banks, then collapsed. Through his blurry eyes, the world was distorted and watery, like he was swimming in the river himself, swimming for too long, drowning like his parents. This burning in his chest that felt like a lack of air, they felt this too. They died like this. The tearing sobs were splitting Frodo in two. They split him from his carefree childhood, setting it on a shelf high above his head. He lay on the ground next to the monster that took his parents, listening to it's mocking laughter. It was killing him, too. Only his suffering would last so much longer. Could he recover? Could he continue to be Frodo Baggins?
He would have to. He was Frodo, son of Drogo and Primula Baggins, and that was who he would continue to be. He wouldn't let the monster kill him. He would hurt, he would mourn, but he would not lose. He would grow up, and he would defeat the monster.